Outgoing President Shannon Morin presents Incoming President Leslie Dickson with the President's Gavel at the RCGW AGM.

WRITTEN BY SHANNON MORIN

Over the 2017-2018 year, the Reading Council of Greater Winnipeg has worked to support its members through an array of programming, the sharing of important findings and techniques on social media, and our blog.

Throughout the year, we have gained membership by offering professional development programming to members and non-members. We offered an incentive discount to encourage new memberships.

We have celebrated many successes within our community over the last year. My tenure began with an immersion in the International Literacy Association (ILA) conference in Orlando, FL, where I had the opportunity to learn from world-wide literacy leaders. In October, we had another successful Manitoba Teachers’ Society Professional Development day with Dr. Jeffery D. Wilhelm. We also hosted an evening program with Monica Wiebe in January. In February, for I Love to Read Month, we were able to donate books and craft supplies to the children's clinic at Cancer Care. In May, we celebrated our Annual Awards evening and were able to provide several scholarships to university students. On top of it all, we made a $500.00 donation to Lubov SSMI Foundation’s Home of Hope in Ukraine. Lubov SSMI Foundation is a part of the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate, an international congregation of sisters for the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

The RCGW continues to use many different social media platforms to reach a wide audience within our local community to advertise professional development and to share research and practical information for literacy programming.​None of this could be accomplished without the hard work of many fine educators from our community. I would like to formally thank everyone who has worked diligently to support the teachers of the greater Winnipeg area, and I hope they know the impact they make on their students and a whole community of students each and every day because of these efforts.

***The end of the year always brings preparations for the next, and we are excited to invite you to our MTS PD Day event, October 19, 2018 , with John Schumacher! Mr. Schu will deliver a full-day program at the CanadInns Destination Center Fort Garry (in Celebrations) – 1824 Pembina Hwy. Every day is a giant book party for this teacher-librarian! John blogs daily at MrSchuReads.com. He also hosts the Scholastic Book Fairs web series "Mr. Schu Goes to the Book Fair" and co-edits the "Reader Leader" blog.John Schumacher is a blogger, a part-time lecturer at Rutgers University, and the Ambassador of School Libraries for Scholastic Book Fairs. He served on the 2014 Newbery committee and on ALSC’s Children and Technology committee, AASL’s Best Websites for Teachers and Learning, two readers’ choice award committees, the School Library Month Planning Committee, and the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature selection committee.

Registration details coming VERY soon!

About the Author - Shannon Morin is the Past President of the Reading Council of Greater Winnipeg. She is currently a Grade 4 and 5 teacher at Wayoata School in the River East Transcona School Division. Her passion is connecting children with good books and fostering a love of reading in her students that extends well beyond their year in her classroom.